EU support for young farmers is often poorly defined, with no results or impact specified, according to a report from the European Court of Auditors published on Thursday 29 June.
The auditors call for the support, totalling almost €10 billion, to be better targeted in order to foster effective generational renewal.
Janusz Wojciechowski, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report, told the press that the objectives of the EU support are not sufficiently well defined. The results and the effect of the aid are not clear. He recommended better targeting of the support (from the first pillar of the CAP) to “encourage farmers to stay on the farm”. The situation is a little better with regard to aid from the second pillar (rural development), Wojciechowski said. “It’s difficult to evaluate the results of the EU support”, he stated.
The Court found little evidence on whether the EU measures facilitated the setting-up of young farmers and improved generational renewal and the viability of the supported holdings. In Italy (Emilia-Romagna) only, “we found evidence that beneficiaries of the setting up measure developed larger holdings, more productive, more profitable and employing more people than non-supported ones”. The Court provides examples from France, Poland and Spain (the three other countries audited), where there is little or no evidence of any improvement obtained in the profitability of farms.
The auditors found that only in Spain (Andalucía) in the 2007-2013 period and in Poland in the 2014-2020 period was there a selection criterion directly encouraging generational renewal.
In terms of the targeting of measures, aid to young farmers under the first pillar of the CAP is sometimes provided to holdings where young farmers may only have a minor decision-making role, the Court notes. It also gives examples from Poland and Spain of holdings which do not need any additional payments under the first pillar to be profitable.
Over the course of the last ten years, the total number of farmers in the EU27 has declined rapidly, from 14.5 million in 2005 to 10.7 million in 2013, while the number of farmers up to the age of 44 has dropped from 3.3 million to 2.3 million over the same period.
From 2007 to 2020, the EU will have allocated €9.6 billion in specific support to young farmers to foster generational renewal in agriculture. If member states’ co-financing of the Pillar 2 setting-up measure is taken into account, total public support amounts to €18.3 billion. Almost 200,000 young farmers received the EU aid for setting up in the 2007-2013 period. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)